Patterns of attention in the interaction of a primary school mathematics student with English as an additional language

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary analysis from a study designed to investigate the participation of students learning English as an additional language(EAL) in primary school mathematics. A key question for the study concerns how such students make sense of mathematics classroom interaction. Primary data consists of two transcripts in which a 9-year-old EAL student works on a word problem task with a monolingual peer. The discursive analysis explores the two students' use of patterns of attention in their interaction. The analysis describes three patterns of attention: attention to narrative experience, to the genre of word problems and to the mathematical structure of their problems. These patterns of attention are used in the process of the two students' sense-making together in ways which support the participation of the EAL student.